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Updated: May 6, 2025
"Of course," he went on earnestly, "your valuation is based on the fact that the picture isn't signed Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does make a difference, certainly. But the thing is if the picture's really good ought one to take advantage ? I mean one can see that Mrs. Fontage is in a tight place, and I wouldn't for the world " My astonished stare arrested him. "You wouldn't ?"
Fontage had to be kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future.
"Some day," Eleanor encouraged her, "you might feel that the picture ought to belong to some one who has more more opportunity of showing it letting it be seen by the public for educational reasons " "I have tried," Mrs. Fontage admitted, "to see it in that light." The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage's brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture.
Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order to avoid the expense of storage and insurance.
"You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?" she suggested. Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. "No one," she corrected with great gentleness, "can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it " We murmured our hasty concurrence.
Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which was so evidently the one object they beheld. "My dear madam " I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention.
Under cover of these mutual assumptions the transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up " she stammered, disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of her splendid effrontery.
"I could never," she said gently her gentleness was adamantine "under any circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of parting with the picture at such a price." Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer's tone was firm.
My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage's silence. She sat as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity.
Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage's past, but even that lifelong habit of acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average feminine strength.
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